The future is clear: enter Idealog's sci-fi short story competition for a chance to win a Blunt umbrella (and widespread admiration)

As part of our recently published Technology Issue, 'Reality Check' – and inspired by Wired's recent fiction issue – we asked some talented friends of the Idealog family to write a story about the impact technology could have on us in the future and created a special 20-page fiction section that was printed on beautiful Renoir paper supplied by B&F Papers. To add a technological element to these stories, we asked Booktrack, a New Zealand-born AI company that creates movie-style soundtracks for audiobooks, to help us out (to listen to all four stories and their soundtracks, mash your pointing device here). We will be publishing one of these stories online every week as part of Technology Month. But we enjoyed the stories in print so much, we wanted to ask our readers for some of theirs.

Science fiction writers have a long history of predicting the future. Of course, due to our inherent survivor bias – the tendency to remember only correct predictions – we often forget that most of them were wrong. But the best stories tend to focus on the battle between humanity and technology and the scenes they create in our imaginations are often close enough to the present to make you feel slightly uncomfortable about what the future might hold. So we want any budding sci-fi writers among the Idealog audience to explore that future.

If you have an idea for a short story about the way technology might change our existence in ways good or bad, get out your pen, or your computer or use some other form of storytelling device and send it to editor@idealog.co.nz. Stories must be a minimum of a haiku, and a maximum of 3,000 words. Entries close on Friday 18th August.

We will publish an array of our favourites on the website and then put them to the vote. The three stories with the most votes will win a magnificent Blunt umbrella worth $119, a subscription to a title of your choice from the Tangible Media stable, and a family-size caramel square from the local bakery.

Idealog has been covering the most interesting people, businesses and issues from the fields of innovation, design, technology and urban development for over 12 years. And we're asking for your support so we can keep telling those stories, inspire more entrepreneurs to start their own businesses and keep pushing New Zealand forward. Give over $5 a month and you will not only be supporting New Zealand innovation, but you’ll also receive a print subscription, an Idealog t-shirt and a copy of the new book by David Downs and Dr. Michelle Dickinson, No. 8 Recharged (while stocks last).